Yes, that’s a seriously geek headline, but this just might create a revolution down the road in civilian fly-by-mouse transportation. At its current prices, no dice, but would I consider, if my mortgage was already done, plunking down on something that would let me engage in some serious travel via airplane timeframes?

I just might, especially if it needs little in the way of a runway…. though taking off from the back of somebody’s pickup would look a little weird…

Freedom is slowly taking it right between the legs in England, which is gradually turning into a paternalist police state, complete with Orwellian video surveillance of public places in order to guarantee behavioral compliance of the “little people.”

The U.S. is by no means immune to the issue, but our various foibles will cause DeToqueville’s prophecy to come fully true in a different manner. An American who’s violating the Panopticon’s views of decent behavior isn’t going to stand for some voice speaking out of a camera “will the gentleman in the red shirt please pick up his can of soda and put it in the nearest trash bin, thank you” with any other response than an upraised middle finger.

When the security happens, it’ll be something that makes people actually feel safer, rather than something that makes people feel like a bunch of control freaks are getting their jollies. Something much more like this:

Read this on StrategyPage. Over-lightening the divisions on the presumption that we can avoid WWIV by playing Russia and China via Great-Power politics, or a flexibility issue, on the presumption that Boot & Co. are right, and the Army’s going to be doing a lot more small wars?

Speculist has picked this ball up, and commented on the Instapundit article.

Would there be traffic of a physical tunnel between the two continents?

It’s plausible. Prior to the emergence of aircraft and the near-century of Russian society being raped by the Communists, there were railroad financiers who were thinking of doing precisely the same thing, on the grounds that it would allow one to link up almost all the world by rail. Sure, you’d miss the Aussies (unless somebody got REAL impressive with bridges), and you wouldn’t be delivering pizza to penguins anytime soon, but think about it: hop onto an Amtrak car or its equivalent, spend two weeks reading, writing, etcetera, and get out of your train in Tallinn or Mumbai or Johannesburg.

Instapundit doesn’t think there’d be traffic. Speculist thinks there would be. I think that such a thing COULD get a lot of traffic, but only if a number of governments were willing to pony up for it… containerized commerce has gotten so efficient that I don’t know whether rail could out-compete maritime shipping of products… and unless you’ve got a train going 350mph, I just can’t see most Americans having the vacation time to take advantage of it when compared to an airplane, especially if we’re soon going to start getting suborbitals. The US railroad companies bet on cargo rather than passengers over fifty years ago, and for good reason. TGV and the like aren’t likely to happen under North America’s significantly more difficult conditions. (Plus, Amtrak sucks, and stays in business only because Congresscritters find it in their political interest to keep propping up the Boston-NYC-DC commuter route, without which.)

Folks, this is courage as the Democrat Leadership understands it. The courage to stand proudly in public, weeks before the majority of the “Surge” will even be in full swing, and admit to the world that you would rather fail than actually be bothered to try.

This is an unmitigated disgrace. Harry “yes I nuked them” Truman and John F. “we will pay any price, bear any burden, for liberty” Kennedy have got to be rolling in their grave.

Buster’s initial reaction was that Mom was kind of a scary broad, but a few minutes later he said, “teach me that stuff…”

No, I don’t intend to train my son to the blade, nor do I recommend anyone else do it.

Well, the Anchoress’ site won’t let me log in or comment, but the up and down of the matter is, she should teach her son these kinds of things. People who have gone “sproing” upstairs may be having “27 ninjas” fantasies (hat tip: Marc MacYoung, whose self-defense books I thoroughly recommend, especially for teenagers), or even “I’m going up into the clock tower” fantasies, but they’re guaranteed not having fantasies about trying to draw down on a totally harmless substitute school teacher, only to get disarmed and knocked through a wall… or killed outright by a 105-lb stick-thin gal who’s literature instructor.

And maybe “Nutbag of the week” would have been protected against that initial stab by his bulletproof vest. Heck, I know my pocketknife’s not as sharp as it should be… because I use it for everything under the sun, rather than keeping it as a reserved weapon.

But if you have a clue, you have options, and if that option is to take one man’s life in order to save 30 others, well, that sucks, but I think God will understand.

Are you a functional, competent adult, who is sick of all the permalescents around you, continually failing to step up and actually take their place even on the starting lines of the maturity race?

Or are you a permalescent?

Well, Glenn Reynolds has a podcase for the rest of us, that functional majority who is sick to tears of watching those who refuse to step up take any responsibility for their own actions, well into their grey and balding years…. plus, a test! Of course, if you’ve read this far, you probably already qualify… of course, does this mean that we should abolish high school?